good sections can be studied by the way, more especi-ally along the watercourses, which generally proceed, in the direction of the dip of the beds. The country from the mountains to Puketitiri may be included as forming a part of the range, although the rocks on the range of hills fronting Puketitiri are, speaking geologically, different. The mountains themselves in some places show rocks with a slaty cleavage. These are mixed with a pale-red sandstone of a fairly fine texture, and corresponding to the rocks at the top of the Ruahine Range at the back of the Whakararas. They are highly denuded, and since the destruction of the scrub and native grass the high winds have bared them, and now thousands of acres consist of bare rock, which sun and frost and rain break up at a rapid rate—so rapid, in fact, that no growth is at present possible.

On the top of the highest part of the mountains I was much interested at observing a series of parallel lines of loose rocks arranged irregularly in line as is done by little children when playing with stones. I could only account for their presence by supposing ice-movement from a higher elevation, when the stones are brought down and deposited in irregular lines as morainic débris. Snow does not rest for more than three months in the year upon the mountains, but the falls appear to be heavy at times, and possibly a slight movement of the snow takes place as soon as the sun is sufficiently powerful to act upon it, at a time when the atmospheric changes are most rapid. The ridge that separates the sources of the rivers is quite narrow, and one can imagine the time when the country further westward was open to the east, and when only a single large river flowed from the lands in the direction of Ruapehu and Taupo, bringing down great volumes of pumice, shingle, and timber, the latter being the result of the destructive outbursts from the volcanoes in the district.

The range of hills immediately joining the mountains on the east side is known as the Birch Range. The Makahu Stream flows between the two, and runs to the north-east to join the Mohaka, that comes further from the westward. These hills may be set down as forming a part of the main range, as they are geologically the same. Denudation, however, has played havoc with them, and they seem as if they had been shattered and shaken and broken at the time when the mountains were in process of elevation. This range is again separated from another line of hills which forms the northern end of a series of rocks—limestones, sandstones, and other—which are met with along the foot of the entire Ruahine Ranges. In some places the rocks are fairly compact limestone; sometimes they are hungry-looking sands, such as are seen topping the slates in different places.

At the top of the hills on the Napier—Kuripapango Road, known as “Blowhard,” the sandstones run into a peculiar fluted limestone, as described by me in a former paper. Further northward the limestone disappears, except here and there, and a brownish-grey hungry sandstone, mixed in places with a grit conglomerate, takes its place. This sandstone country has been subject to great denudation, and the whole of the Puketitiri district presents remnants of this sandstone and nodular limestone, into which the former passes as it dips to the south-east.

In order, however, to comprehend the full sequence of rocks in the district under notice it is necessary to imagine what the country was at the time when the drainage was to the south-west. The slope was towards Hawke's Bay, but a deep valley lay between the rising mountains and the range of limestones, whose scarp showed a fracture running north-east and south-west, and facing the north-west. This deep valley can be traced for many miles, for the scarp is as definite to-day as when the upward pressure fractured the limestones which at that time covered the entire area in the direction of Ruapehu. I took a photograph of one section of the scarp, on the ridge between Puketitiri and Hawkeston, the residence of Mr. J. Hallett, which shows a face as if cut with a knife. The elevation of the Kawekas and the fracturing of the rocks to the eastward caused a break sufficiently large for the entrance of the sea so as to form deep bays and inlets, and in various parts of the district fossiliferous sands and impure limestones are met with topping limestones which belong to the Upper Miocene beds. I do not think these younger beds of fossiliferous sands and limestones are to be met with to the north of the 39th parallel of latitude, which may be said to be the northern boundary of Hawke's Bay; but it is also a curious fact that shingle conglomerates and attendant sands do not appear to the northward of this parallel, whilst they are very highly developed to the southward. The limestones which present in their scarps such a characteristic feature in the landscape belong to the Upper Miocene beds. They abound in fossils, and in some places the large oyster Ostrea ingens, which is characteristic of what are known as the Te Aute limestones, forms immense banks, presenting the appearance of artificial banks of oyster-shells. On the hills a mile or so to the north of Mr. Hallett's homestead there are scores of acres of these shells, and they are arranged so regularly atop of each other that it is difficult to imagine how they lived.^* Certainly they represent a long period of deposition;

and yet there is no trace of a break, an intrusion, or a change in the direction of currents. In some places hardly another variety of shell—except a Patella or a Balanus—is to be found, and yet within a score or two yards are other banks containing a whole museum of specimens. I have taken photographs of several of the banks, and have made lantern-slides to show what life there must have been thereabouts in the days when the oysters were at their prime. Such deposits in these days would satisfy even the demands of a city like London for years, although I doubt whether epicures of this bivalve would have wished for an oyster-supper where one or two oysters at the most was sufficient for a meal!

The Miocene beds continue from Puketitiri in the direction of Patoka, changing somewhat their rock characters as they proceed. The limestones are seen to rest upon a pale-blue sandy limestone and marl, containing plenty of fossils; such as Struthiolaria, Cytherea, Pecten, Natica, Murex, and Ostrea. At the Patoka Hill laminated limestone is inter-bedded with fossiliferous sands, and these are seen to be above the marly limestone containing the fossils just named. Few or no fossils are to be seen in this laminated limestone, although traces of broken shell, such as Pectèen and Balanus, can be distinguished.

Proceeding towards Napier from Patoka the country appears rugged and broken. We are now on the eastern slope of the Titio-kura limestone range, of which Te Waka is such a prominent point from the Napier bluff. Immediately following the Patoka Hill is a smaller one at its foot, and this is quite different in structure from the rocks that have been hitherto met with. We are now in the line of the conglomerates, which, commencing north of Pohui in sands and grit, strike to the south-west and intrude themselves everywhere, sometimes resting beside the limestones, sometimes replacing them, and sometimes being apparently mixed with shelly limestone, and so thrusting themselves every where till they partly lose themselves in the Ruataniwha Plain.

Whenever I come among these conglomerates there always arises in my mind a doubt as to their age, and yet they can be traced regularly over a large area of this district. Sometimes I have been inclined to the opinion that they are contemporary with the Pliocene limestones which appear overtopping the Miocene deposits as far back towards the mountains as the Birch Hills; at other times they seem to me as belonging to the Miocene beds; and yet there can hardly be a doubt that they were deposited subsequently to the Pliocene beds, and during their deposition the Miocene and Pliocene deposits were greatly denuded. In fact, with

the exception of the higher lands, all the Miocene and Pliocene limestones were subjected to severe erosion, and were replaced by enormous accumulations of sand, shingle, conglomerate, and lignite lands such as now cover such a large extent of country.

Between Patoka and Rissington the whole area is covered with a conglomerate deposit which varies in structure, sometimes presenting walls almost like a face of limestone, sometimes being of a deep-brown grit, and at others passing into sands and shelly conglomerate. The shells where seen are mainly the cockle and the oyster. It would appear that the shingle-conglomerates were deposited within the vicinity of salt-water, for bones are not uncommon, as the workmen who quarry the conglomerates for roading often find large bones, which appear to belong to a cetacean of some kind. I have several of the bones so found, and specimens were sent to Sir James Hector by a Napier gentleman, who received intimation that they belonged to a cetacean.

At Rissington the blue-clay marls, which form the lowest beds of the Pliocene deposits, are well exposed, and on the top of them are seen resting shingle and conglomerate which have evidently planed down the clays and carried away the limestones.

As you rise the hills in the direction of Mr. Bennett's homestead at Wharerangi the limestones again make their appearance, and with them here and there are traces of the shingle-conglomerates, which evidently at one time swept across the tops of what are now the highest hills hereabouts. Traces of the shingle may be noticed descending the hills into the valley which opens at Puketapu into the Tutaekuri River, but their appearance is such as to bring doubts into the mind regarding their true stratigraphical position. From the valley the road passes over the hills in the direction of Napier, and here the well-known upper limestones of the Napier series are met with, whilst in certain places of the inner harbour the shingle-conglomerates make their appearance on the top of the blue marls, which represent the middle beds of the Napier series.

It may be that the shingle deposits that are met with here and there from the top of the hills beyond Wharerangi to Napier were deposited from a different stream from that which swept over the whole country between Patoka and Rissington, or perhaps the stream with its burden of shingle was diverted somewhat further to the south ward. In any case, the limestones were left in the district between Wharerangi and Napier, whilst they were replaced further to the south-west, where remnants remain mixed with shingle, as if solidification had taken place after the shingle had passed over the district.